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I have a very small area on the rear bumper that needs attention. The front clip is worse. I also want to get the hood painted.
As for the clear, what's the best way to deal with it? The rest of the car looks pretty good so I don't care to paint the whole car.
Both bumpers would be a total redo. Plenty of shops can do just bumpers & a hood. Those 3 parts & a good paint correction buff job on the rest could make it look like a whole different car.
If you could remove & reinstall, that could save some.
If you could do a decent sanding prep job, that could save a lot & from some places get you better quality. But since your asking advise here, that may not be in your skillset..
Not sure what sort of paint shop choices you got up in Woodstock or even private mobile or home shop painters, but that cam make or break you.
Thanks for the response. You are correct in that body work is not in my skill set (yet). I just wasn't sure if the rear bumper was a complete re-do. Would I need to completely remove the paint, sand, prime, etc ...
Oh and I went to a paint shop on Monday for an estimate only to find that this shop mostly worked with wrecked cars covered under insurance. The paint guy there actually recommended Maaco in Marietta. I suppose if I could get those parts ready for paint, then they could spray it.
If you were to do something yourself, cutting through the clearcoat without messing up the uniformity of what's under it is what needs to be removed. Any intact material under old clear should be good to stay. In some cases new paint can even be sprayed without a primer & be fine, but that part all depends.
(Yet) is a good word to use. We all start somewhere, but have to go through at least some mistake making to get good. That's the hard part.
Was going to mention Macco's , but they are independent & results you get even from same store can vary just by how you talk to them before paying price. Maaco near Atlantic blvd in Jacksonville near my work can do both half *** & really good. Their black will likely be a single stage, which can be hard to tell from base/clear. If you ask them to spray sufficiently thick enough for a friend to colorsand & buff it for you, it will be a better result & the finish can be further refined later. Up to you if you feel confident to start sanding things, but best to expect them to finish it, which they'd rather do anyways to be responsible for job quality. Also could bring whole car or parts. I'd ballpark $150 as a crap job & $250 to $400 for a pretty decent job per bumper.$300 to 700 for hood. I'd get them headlight cover too, get rid of the main road rash & like said buff the rest. I'd call or just bring the car by for a ball park or a hard quote.
Insurance collision shops do bare minimum quality work on average, so you could get batter from Maaco & they'll generally get it in & out in a good time frame.
Any questions, feel free to ask me.
You could always go the route im going. Get into painting. I just bought a paint gun from Eastwood to paint my new ws9 hood but have now decided I'm going to repaint my whole car.
There are a ton of videos on you tube that show how to paint and how to blend if you were to give it a shot.
. I'd call or just bring the car by for a ball park or a hard quote.
Insurance collision shops do bare minimum quality work on average, so you could get batter from Maaco & they'll generally get it in & out in a good time frame.
Any questions, feel free to ask me.
This is absolutely inaccurate. Most shops that do insurance jobs have very strict inspections on their jobs or the insurance company will drop them as an approved repair facility.
I've always been a do it yourself guy..... that's why I've decided to do it myself. I hate paying someone to do something I'm not satisfied with. That's how I've been since early 20s and I'm 58 now .... so .....
I've saved a ton of money doing all my car repairs over the years.
Thanks for the responses. I'm going to look into that sprayer.
You could always go the route im going. Get into painting. I just bought a paint gun from Eastwood to paint my new ws9 hood but have now decided I'm going to repaint my whole car.
There are a ton of videos on you tube that show how to paint and how to blend if you were to give it a shot.
I have not used it yet, actually just recieved it today.
I do a lot of paint corrections as in wet sanding, Compounding, polishing, waxes, sealants, ceramic coating and figured this is something I can do and want to do. My T/A paint is not that bad but I want it better (non gm factory paint job lol) and will be diving in head first in about a month. I really don't wanna spend 5+ grand on a nice paint job and tedious work is right up my alley so figured what the hell, why not.
So with that said, the gun seems nice, good reviews but I really don't have any advice due to never have used one before. I have just been reading a whole lot and watching and listening to techniques on you tube.
Well if you think you can work your way up to that,I can help there too. Here's a link to SPI forums. http://www.spiuserforum.com/index.php.
If you agree that prep is most of the work, you're ready to get started learning more.
Properly painting an entire car with ease takes a large compressor & a good place to do so & more practice in actual spraying large items. . Painting a few parts can be done with a much smaller compressor & not as nice of a work area. Prep things correctly, Mix your products correctly , apply good enough, & learning color sanding & buffing can get you to a home done finish better than you can afford to pay an average shop to do. Buffing & sanding skills can help make up for not having the most expensive equipment & work area.
In your case if just starting with good bumpers with bad topcoat, an unpainted fiberglass hood? , & Maybe the 2 headlight covers, you could be ok starting with a gal of black 2k primer, gal of single stage black or base & clear along with needed reducers ,hardners, Gal of wax & grease remover & not too much else in the way of chemicals. If no dents in bumpers, then no pricey fillers needed yet. Will need a collection of sandpapers & some sanding blocks & sticks. You can make your own on some. To start out doing parts needing paint right now, you can spend more to have them done with all the misc little things you may not own yet, but coming out ahead later.
If you mess up, hey, it's just paint. It can be fixed.
By the way, the vehicle in my outdated you tube video I entirely repainted in 1998 at an autocrafters shop on a Saturday with dupont bc/cc, later painted the bedcover outside current work job with nason ss, then painted redone front half with nason bc/cc under a carport at home at night in march. When clean & polished, hard to tell one from the other.
This is absolutely inaccurate. Most shops that do insurance jobs have very strict inspections on their jobs or the insurance company will drop them as an approved repair facility.
Don't misunderstand me.Yes they have standards, but what I mean by bare minimum quality is also what I'd call most factory paint work.It's not what real car people want for their baby. Also most jobs don't pay a lot or give us poor snooks doing this sort of work much time to do it. I damn sure ain't gonna do insurance collision repair work at age 50 & call what I get paid to do show quality.
But moving forwards, this is now a diy painting discussion.
Great info. I'm in the same boat as far as learning goes. I have a large air compressor and a garage where I can put up a temp spray booth. I'm an engineer ... so it's my nature to understand ****. LOL.
Not using a primer or sealer for certain situations is one of those touchy opinionated subjects where it's really good to have personal experience with the particular products you're using.
It's not used mostly for where you're fixing a spot or spots with basecoat color ( most likely primed first) and the rest of a panel just gets cleared over good condition paint. Sometimes a whole vehicle with great paint may be redone with no sealer or primer where the compatible paint makes a good first coat & will stick great to it with no variances to hide. Again this is the knowledgeable painters choice to not to and the GREATEST majority of paint jobs get something.
For many things there can be a better & best,so to speak & this can vary to brands used. On my personal 1998 paint job I was told to a brown dupont sealer over the not quite week old epoxy that was block sanded to hell & back. It turned out to be the weak layer of everything where rock chips show up to. Likely not even the same version of product sold by now.
With the spi products I'm now switching, to they have a 2k sealer, but for best bond they say use their epoxy reduced thinner for a sealer before paint.That's with their products.
If you don't have years of experience with a certain brand, then you generally need to follow guidelines for the product you're going with.
Another situation of ok & best to mention. If going to bare metal, there are many self etch & direct to metal 2k products that may work, But it would be hard to find an expert that wouldn't say epoxy is the best first coat on raw metal.
Raw plastics. Little saying is if it floats, promote. Meaning most late model oily plastics like pp, tpo, teo, need an adhesion promoter if raw. Not if still painted. Old yellow urethane does not.
Clears I deal with , such as SPI which is a true poly, don't use flex additives like was required with a lot of stuff way back when.... Even the lower cost dupont nason clear I used in 2011 didn't need it.
03-26-2019, 09:34 PM
Advice on clear damage 
